Offers made to keep YOUR Radio broadcasting

YOUR Radio is not closing down as previously announced after two offers were made to save the station.

The Dumbarton based commercial radio service threatened to close down unless a buyer could be found.

Since the company announced that the station could possibly close at the end of April, bosses told RadioToday that two ‘serious and credible offers’ have been made to take over the company.

A statement says: “The Directors have decided to continue YOUR Radio’s on-air service for the foreseeable future in order for a deal to be concluded. This decision to continue is due in part to the many messages of goodwill and support from politicians and listeners throughout the area.”

The station covers Dunbartonshire, Inverclyde and eastern Argyll & Bute on 103 & 106.9FM and DAB.

Earlier this month, Spencer Pryor, Commercial Director outlined the reasons for the closure: “However good the actual radio service is the company has endured a large number of normal business pressures such as large increases in rent and rates, which coupled with the ongoing high costs of running a local news operation as part of our broadcasting licence conditions, is a huge drain on our limited resources.”

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Whoever buys Your Radio will probably rebrand the station and major changes will be needed to make it commercially viable.
It will lose its current identity and some if not most its presenters and probably will end up as an opt out of a network.

I just wonder if one of the buyers might well be Nation Broadcasting. They bought Rock 96.3 to save that station. Whoever it is, I hope they will not start doing networking as that damages local radio,and I hope that most of the current presenters will be kept on.
It will be interesting to see who the buyer is as they will have to inform Ofcom of the changes in ownership.

With Nation Broadcasting being the recent competitor, after buying out the failed Rock Radio license (96.3fm), the YOUR RADIO frequencies and Glasgow mux would be better managed under them.

YOUR would merge with Nation Radio’s 96.3FM service and would broadcast from the existing studios, allowing them to comply with the local requirements, whilst at the same time covering West Scotland, without worrying about making potential losses (which they are making without a powerful license or big investor / backer).

Existing presenters/staff would stay.
Voice tracking could help save costs on the then former YOUR licenses.

Nation would save a lot of hastle trying to establish a team, studio and building (HQ) and Spencer / board members would walk away with the cash.

Nation already run a couple of muxes and would save money on taking a slot on the Central Mux.